PopupCD is distributed as SHAREWARE. You are allowed to try out the program free for 15 days. If, after the trial period, you decide to keep the program, you are required to pay the registration fee. Reminders will appear periodically at startup after the trial period has expired. When you register you will receive a registration serial number that will personalize your copy, remove the shareware reminders, and enable several new features.
Please respect the time and effort put in by the authors of this and other shareware products, and pay for shareware that you use regularly. This not only grants you peace of mind, but encourages the authors to continue to support and develop their programs.
NOTE: This document has been formatted to print optimally with SimpleText on standard US letter-sized paper, with the "Larger Print Area" option in Page Setup turned off. Other settings may cause some graphics to be split between pages.
ABOUT PopupCD
PopupCD is a unique popup remote control that provides quick and easy access to your CD audio discs through your CD-ROM drive. It installs as a control panel / extension in your Control Panels folder, and is always immediately accessible with a quick mouse click anywhere on the screen from within any application. The attractive and realistic-looking remote control includes all functions normally used with conventional CD players, as well as a very functional display and playing time indicator, and a popup track menu with track names so you can quickly find your favorite tracks. Best of all, PopupCD remains inactive and totally hidden until called up, conserving precious screen space. All functions can be accessed through the on-screen remote or with configurable keyboard hotkeys. If you're tired of launching or switching applications just to control your CDs, PopupCD can be an elegant and unobtrusive alternative.
REQUIREMENTS
• An internal or external CD-ROM drive.
• System 7 or greater with Color QuickDraw.
• The 'Apple CD-ROM' extension (version 5.0.1 or greater recommended) or compatible driver installed in your Extensions folder. Only Apple-compatible drivers that install with the name ".AppleCD" are supported. Additionally, some functions may not work correctly if the driver is not 100% compatible.
• You will also need to have 'Foreign File Access' and 'Audio CD Access' present in your Extensions folder in order for the system to recognize and mount audio CDs. These are included with Apple System Software. If you can currently play audio CDs using the AppleCD Audio Player, you should already be set up to use PopupCD.
• To make use of the digital audio recording functions, a CD-ROM drive that supports digital audio extraction is required. All Apple double speed and faster drives support digital audio extraction, as do most newer third-party drives. Most older single speed drives, such as the AppleCD SC, do not. You will be notified when you try to record if your drive does not support this option.
FEATURES
• Unique popup remote control, with LCD track and time display and volume level indicator, pops up with a single mouse click, right at the current mouse location! Customizable popup key modifiers. Remote stays on-screen as long as a modifier key is held down.
• Quick and easy access to all audio CD functions from the popup remote control, or with configurable keyboard commands.
• Definable sections of your favorite CDs can be recorded to disc as System 7 or AIFF files, for use as system sounds, or in your multimedia or digital recording applications, right from the popup remote control!
• Complete audio CD functions including play, pause, stop, eject, track skip and scan, volume, and shuffle play (random track playback). Eject function allows even CD-ROM and empty tray ejection.
• Configurable track popup menu showing disc name and track names, numbers and times, in current playback order, using information entered from AppleCD Audio Player.
• Option to use AppleCD Audio Player programs.
• Disc or program repeat function, as well as A-B section repeat functions.
• Automatic play option plays discs automatically upon insertion, or after startup.
• Automatic resume feature resumes playback and/or shuffle play after a restart.
• Automatic eject feature ejects any audio CD or CD-ROM if one is present at shutdown. This prevents a disc from being 'stuck' in the internal drive after the system is shut down. Audio CDs can also be configured to eject automatically when playback is complete.
• Configurable LCD-style track and time display. Display elapsed track time, remaining track time, elapsed disc time, remaining disc time, or total disc time and total tracks.
• Informative multi-color track/disc elapsed time bargraph and track pointer, and lighted playback buttons show playback status at a glance.
• Responsive continuous-action keyboard commands for scan and volume control. Just hold down the key as long as you want the volume to increase/decrease or the audible scan to continue.
• Unique direct track access keyboard command - access any track directly by number by pressing and holding the configured key modifiers, then type in a one- or two-digit track number. The desired track is played as soon as the modifier keys are released!
• Control panel allows full configuration of keyboard commands and popup key modifiers. Complete balloon help is available in the control panel and all associated dialogs. Control panel can be opened from the remote control!
• Full support of 'mixed mode' audio & data CDs such as CD+ discs.
INSTALLATION
To install PopupCD, drag it to your closed System Folder, or directly to your Control Panels folder, and restart. Also make sure 'Apple CD-ROM' (or compatible driver), 'Foreign File Access', and 'Audio CD Access' are installed in your Extensions folder.
'Apple CD-ROM' is the CD-ROM driver that allows access to audio and data CDs. Some popular third-party replacements for the Apple driver are "DriveCD" from Casa Blanca Works and "CD-ROM Toolkit" from FWB. You may also have received a driver with your external CD-ROM drive. Make sure you do not install more than one CD-ROM driver. If you are using a third party driver, remove Apple CD-ROM from your Extensions folder.
'Foreign File Access' is an extension that allows the Mac to recognize foreign file systems other than Macintosh disks. 'Audio CD Access' is a file used by the 'Foreign File Access' extension that specifically allows the Mac to recognize audio CDs and mount them on the desktop. (Some other files used by Foreign File Access, but not needed to use PopupCD, are 'Apple Photo Access' for mounting Photo CDs, and 'High Sierra File Access' and 'ISO 9660 File Access' for mounting some non-Mac CD-ROMs.)
OVERVIEW
PopupCD consists of two parts, both of which are included in the single 'PopupCD' file that resides in the Control Panels folder. The PopupCD control panel is used to set certain options such as key assignments, as well as to register the program. The PopupCD remote control is installed at startup as an extension and remains in memory. The remote control includes the actual interface used to control playback of your audio CDs, through mouse or keyboard commands.
THE CONTROL PANEL
The PopupCD control panel is used to set options used by the remote control. In addition to opening the control panel in the usual way, you can also click on the PopupCD logo at the bottom of the remote control.
• The 'On-Off' slide switch controls whether to enable or disable all functions of PopupCD. This also controls whether to load PopupCD into memory on subsequent restarts. If the switch is turned off, PopupCD is disabled immediately, and will not load each time you restart your Mac. You must turn the switch on to enable PopupCD and allow loading at startup.
• The 'About' button displays a dialog with version, status, and contact information.
The status display tells you if PopupCD is loaded and active and why. The CD-ROM driver version is displayed if known (if the driver supports the 'DriverGestalt()' call present in Apple CD-ROM v5.0.0 and later).
• The 'Prefs...' button brings up the preferences dialog, which allows you to configure some less frequently-used options in PopupCD.
• 'Sound Clip File Format' - enabled only when registered, these options allow you to set the file format for saving sound clips. See the discussion on "SOUND CLIPS" below for information on these options.
• 'Track Popup Menu' - these four options allow customization of the track popup menu. See "THE REMOTE CONTROL" below for more information.
• 'Sound Clips in Apple menu' - determines whether an alias to the "PopupCD Sound Clips" folder is installed in your Apple Menu, for easy access to your saved sound clips. PopupCD always stores sound clips in this folder which is located inside the System Folder.
• 'Audible command keys' - determines whether a click sound is heard when a valid PopupCD keyboard command key is pressed. This helps to verify that a command has been accepted by PopupCD.
• 'Audible button clicks' - determines whether a click sound is heard when a button is pressed or released on the PopupCD remote control.
• 'Turn off repeat on eject' - if this option is selected, repeat mode will be turned off every time a CD is ejected. If not selected, repeat mode will remain in effect when you switch discs.
• 'Enable eject of CD-ROMs' - if this option is selected, manual and auto-eject will work for CD-ROMs as well as audio CDs.
• 'Eject CD at shutdown' - if this option is selected, any audio CD or CD-ROM present in the drive at system shutdown will automatically be ejected, and the system will wait for you to press the mouse button or any key on the keyboard to resume shutdown. You do not need to push the tray back in if you have a tray-loading drive, the system will do that for you. If you've ever left a CD in the drive when you shutdown, and had to go searching for that paper clip to get it out, you'll appreciate this feature! You can also configure whether you want just audio CDs ejected, or both audio and CD-ROMs, by setting the 'Enable eject of CD-ROMs' option.
• 'Disable startup alerts' - if this option is selected, no warning alert will be displayed at startup if the Apple CD-ROM driver is not detected.
• 'Popup Remote Time Display Default' - this popup menu lets you select your preferred display format in the popup remote control. Select the 'Last Setting' option if you want to retain the display setting between uses of the remote control.
• 'Use AppleCD Audio programs' - if this option is selected, any disc programs entered into AppleCD Audio Player will be used when shuffle play is selected instead of a random track list. You can program any order in AppleCD, including duplicating or leaving out tracks.
• 'Driver compatibility mode' - enabled only when the Apple CD-ROM driver is not installed, this option allows PopupCD to run better with third-party drivers. If you cannot play an audio CD, or playback begins, but immediately stops, select this option. This will disable the setting of stop points, which some drivers do not support. Shuffle, program, and repeat options will not work with this option selected.
• The 'POPUP KEYS' checkboxes determine which keyboard modifiers (the shift, control, option, and command keys) are used along with a mouse click to popup the remote control or track popup menu. The default is the shift, control, and option keys. Select these carefully to avoid possible conflict with another program you may use regularly. If none of these four buttons are checked, the popup remote is disabled (key commands are still available). If the mouse button is pressed and released quickly, the popup remote control will appear, but if the mouse button is pressed and held down for more than a half second, the track name popup menu will appear instead.
• The 'CONTROL KEYS' - 'On' checkbox determines if keyboard control of PopupCD is enabled, and the 'Set...' button brings up the "PopupCD Keyboard Control Keys" dialog, allowing you to set the keyboard keys you wish to use for each function.
To assign a different key to a function, click on a key assignment and press the desired key combination. The 'Direct Track Access' function is permanently assigned to the '0'-'9' numeric keys, so you can only change the modifiers for this function. Again you should choose your key commands carefully to avoid conflicts with your other programs. You can also disable an individual function from keyboard control by pressing the 'delete' key instead of a key combination. 'Undefined' will appear to indicate the function does not have a defined key equivalent. To revert back to the default key settings, press the 'Default' button. The 'Cancel' button dismisses the dialog and ignores changes made since the dialog was called up. The 'OK' button accepts all changes and applies them immediately.
• The 'Auto-play' checkbox determines whether to automatically play audio CDs when you load them into the drive. If this option is checked, PopupCD will begin playback as soon as a CD is loaded and mounted on the desktop by the Finder, or immediately after the system starts up if a CD is in the drive at startup.
• The 'Auto-eject' checkbox, if selected, will cause a CD to be automatically ejected at the end of the last track or after shuffle play has completed. You can use this option if you like to enjoy continuous music while working.
• The 'Auto-resume' checkbox enables the automatic resume feature of PopupCD. If this button is checked, the playback status and position is restored each time you restart. If shuffle play is active when you restart, the same track order will be restored. This feature works only after a normal restart, not after shutdown, and works in either play or pause mode. Since this feature works by installing a restart routine in the system queue, which gets called at restart by the system software, auto-resume does not work after a 'keyboard' restart (control-command-power on key), or after pressing the restart (programmer's reset) button, since a normal system shutdown does not occur in these cases.
• The 'Register...' button (not available when registered) brings up the registration dialog. Balloon help is also available within the registration dialog. See "REGISTRATION" below for more information.
THE REMOTE CONTROL
The PopupCD remote control is the main interface you use to interact with your CD-ROM drive and control audio playback. To popup the remote control at any time, press and hold the modifier keys configured in the control panel (shift-control-option by default), and click the mouse button. The remote will appear centered at the mouse location, and will remain on-screen as long as a modifier key or the mouse button is depressed. If you click and hold the mouse button for more than half a second, the track name popup menu will appear instead, so that you can quickly select a track you wish to play.
The remote consists of a display area at the top, eleven playback control buttons (described below), and two volume control buttons with level indicator toward the bottom. The display area includes a large track display, a smaller time display to its right, disc and remaining time mode indicators above the time display, a disc status bargraph and pointer, and a track elapsed/remaining time LED at the bottom of the display. Indicator lights on the shuffle/program play, play/pause, stop, and A/B buttons turn green to further indicate the current playback state.
The disc status pointer indicates the current playback position in relation to the rest of the disc. The bargraph shows the current track in green. If shuffle play is active, track segments will darken as they are played. The length of the track segments are proportional to the playing time of the disc. Each track is shown as a separate segment if possible. However, because of limited resolution, the display will revert to a solid bar if there are too many tracks to display accurately as separate segments. Below the bargraph is a red indicator that advances from left to right to indicate playing time within the current track.
To display a popup menu of track names, click and hold the mouse on the track number in the left half of the display area. A popup menu will appear listing all tracks in the current playback order. You can then select any track from the popup menu and the disc will begin playback at the start of the selected track. The popup menu can be configured to show any combination of disc name, track number, track name, and track time from the control panel.
Disc and track names are read from the "CD Remote Programs" file in your Preferences folder. This file is produced by AppleCD Audio Player, which you can use to enter and edit disc information. If the file is not found, or no information has been entered for the current disc, numeric track names are used.
Although the display normally shows track elapsed time, you can show track remaining time, disc elapsed time or disc remaining time by repeatedly clicking in the time display area in the right half of the display. The display reverts to the default setting (as set in the control panel preferences dialog) the next time you popup the remote. Press and hold the mouse on the time display to temporarily show total number of tracks and total disc time.
If an audio CD is not in the drive, the display reverts to a clock display, with the hour shown in the track display, and minutes and seconds in the time display. The bargraph displays a linear equivalent of an analog clock face, with the track pointer as the minute hand, and the track elapsed time indicator the second hand.
In addition to the following functions, you can quickly open the PopupCD control panel by clicking on the PopupCD logo at the bottom of the remote.
• 'Shuffle/Program' - generates a random play list of all tracks on the CD, and begins playback with the first track in the list. You can use the 'Track Skip' functions to skip forward and back through the play list, or the 'Audible Scan' functions to scan forward and back through the current track. Performing this function while shuffle play is in progress cancels shuffle/program mode and continues playback in normal track order. If 'Use AppleCD Audio programs' is selected in the control panel preferences dialog, and an AppleCD Audio Player program is defined for the current disc, then the button will change from 'SHUF' to 'PROG', and the programmed track list will be used instead of a random play list. [Default key equivalent: shift-control-return]
• 'Eject' - ejects the CD currently in the drive, or opens the tray if the tray is empty and you have a tray-loading drive. This also unmounts and removes the CD icon from the desktop. You can choose whether this command effects CD-ROMs in the 'Prefs' dialog. [Default key equivalent: shift-control-option-up arrow]
• 'Play/Pause' (toggle) - 'Play' begins playback at the current playback position. The playback position can be set while in 'Stop' mode using the skip and scan functions on the remote control. If play is in progress, this button changes to the 'Pause' function. Pressing 'Pause' pauses playback without moving the playback position. [Default key equivalent: shift-control-space]
• 'Stop' - stops playback and resets the playback position to the start of the disc. If a disc is not currently playing, this function simply resets the current playback position to the start of track 1. [Default key equivalent: shift-control-delete]
• 'Reverse Track Skip' and 'Forward Track Skip' - skips to the next track or start of the current track. If the playback position is within the first second of a track (the display reads 0:00 ET), this function skips to the start of the previous track. If the disc is stopped, you can use these buttons to change the playback start position. [Default key equivalents: shift-control-left & right arrow]
• 'Reverse Audible Scan' and 'Forward Audible Scan' - continuously scans the disc at high speed playing audio samples as you hold down the button (or key equivalent). If the disc is paused, the disc remains in pause when the scan is stopped. If the disc is stopped, you can use these buttons o change the playback start position. [Default key equivalents: shift-control-option-left & right arrow]
• 'Repeat Mode' / 'Save to Disk' - toggles repeat mode from normal play (stop at end of disc or shuffle play) to repeat play (repeat disc or shuffle program). When A-B repeat is in effect (both A and B buttons lit), this button changes to the 'Save to Disk' function, which will save the defined A-B segment to disk into the "PopupCD Sound Clips" folder inside your System folder, in the file format specified in the control panel.
• 'A' Repeat - marks the current playback position shown in the display as the start of a defined repeat segment. Pressing this button while it is already lit clears the start point. Pressing this button while both A and B are lit clears both the start and end points, and cancels A-B repeat mode. This function is not available while shuffle play is active.
• 'B' Repeat - marks the current playback position shown in the display as the end of a defined repeat segment, and begins playback at the start position. Pressing this button while it is already lit clears the ending marker and allows you to define a new endpoint. If you define an endpoint that is earlier in the disc than the startpoint, the A and B points are automatically swapped. This function is not available while shuffle play is active.
• 'Lower Volume' and 'Raise Volume' - lowers or raises the playback volume continuously as you hold the button (or key equivalent) down. [Default key equivalents: shift-control-down & up arrow]
There is an additional function available only from the keyboard called 'Direct Track Access' that allows immediate access to any track on the CD. Press and hold the modifier keys assigned in the control panel (shift-control by default), and type in a one- or two-digit track number on the keypad or numeric keys. Playback will start at the requested track as soon as you release the modifier keys, whether the disc is currently stopped, paused, or playing.
SOUND CLIPS - RECORDING CD SAMPLES TO DISK
PopupCD includes the capability to record selected sections of any audio CD direct to your hard disk as digital audio sound files in System 7 or AIFF format. To utilize this feature, your CD-ROM drive must have digital audio extraction capability. Early single speed drives such as the AppleCD SC series do not. If your drive does not support extraction, you will not be able to record sound clips with PopupCD. You will be notified of this when you attempt to record.
Since the transfer is entirely digital, there is the capability to make an exact digital copy of a portion of a CD on your hard disk, limited in size only by available hard disk space. This can be very useful in multimedia and digital recording applications, as well as simply to make a system sound playable from the Finder, as a system beep, or for use with utility packages such as Kaboom! and SoundMaster that allow you to assign sounds to system events. This capability is included for personal use only. Distribution of samples recorded in such a manner may be considered a copyright violation.
To record a sample to disk, you must first mark the section you wish to record using the 'A' and 'B' buttons on the remote control. Set the desired starting point using the track and/or scan functions (the CD can be playing, paused, or stopped), and press the 'A' button to mark the start point. Now move to the desired end point of your sample, and press the 'B' button. This defines your sample, changes the 'Repeat Mode' button to the 'Save to Disk' button, and begins A-B repeat mode at the defined start point. The sample will repeatedly play from start to finish until you press the 'Save to Disk' button to record the defined sample to disk, or press one of the other function buttons. You can change the end point by pressing the 'B' button again to clear the current end point, moving to the new end point, and pressing 'B' to set the new end point. To clear both the start and end points, and cancel A-B repeat mode, press the 'A' button again. Both the 'A' and 'B' buttons light to indicate a stored start and/or end point.
If you store an end point that happens to precede the defined start point, the start and end points are automatically exchanged. When a sample is defined, the track and scan functions are limited in scope to the defined sample, ie. you cannot move past the defined start and end points. This allows you to move quickly to the defined points to review your sample before recording it.
When you're ready to record, press the 'Save to Disk' button. The sample will be saved to disk in the format selected in the control panel preferences dialog. The file will be saved into a folder called "PopupCD Sound Clips" in the System Folder, and with a filename that describes the track number and time of the start and end points, for example "Track 5 (3.44) - 6 (1.14)". While the recording is in progress, the cursor will change to a gray-filled CD icon, which will empty as the recording progresses, and the display will update continually to show the progress of the recording.
The PopupCD Preferences dialog allows you to define the format you wish to use to save your sound clips. The default format for an unregistered copy is a 22Khz, 8-bit mono 'snd' file, which is adequate for most needs. You must register to enable the other options.
'snd' and 'AIFF' files are both standard sound file formats used on the Mac. 'snd' is the standard double-clickable System 7 sound file. 'AIFF' (Audio Interchange File Format) is a universal file format used not only on the Mac, but on other platforms as well. A disadvantage of 'snd' files is that they are limited in size to 16 megabytes or less, due to MacOS resource size limitations. AIFF sound samples are not stored in resources, therefore there is no size limit (except available hard disk space!). If you try to save a 'snd' file larger than 16M, the file is automatically saved in AIFF format instead.
The 11KHz, 22KHz and 44KHz options set the sampling rate of the saved sound file. The 44KHz CD audio data is downsampled to the selected rate (using averaging algorithms) before saving to disk. Selecting a lower sampling rate results in a smaller file size, but high frequencies are more muted. The 44 KHz rate results in a sample with the full audio spectrum preserved (22KHz high frequency limit, above the limit of human hearing). The 22 and 11KHz rates result in high frequency muting above 11 and 5.5 KHz respectively, but are still fine for use as system sounds or in non-critical applications.
The 8 and 16 bit options select whether the sound will be saved with the full 16 bit sample size (65000+ levels) or reduced to 8 bit (256 levels). Again, there is a tradeoff between file size and playback quality. Most Macs can only play back audio with 8 bit resolution, so that option should be fine for most uses.
The final option is whether you want to preserve the stereo information, or save the file as a mono sound sample (averaging the left and right channels).
The above table shows how much hard disk space is required for each setting. The trade-off for better sound quality is a larger file size. Stereo samples are twice as large as mono samples, 16-bit samples are twice the size of 8-bit samples, and 44 and 22KHz samples are twice as big as 22 and 11KHz respectively, so choose your options wisely. For most applications, 11 or 22KHz, 8 bit mono samples are adequate.
REGISTRATION
PopupCD is shareware. There is a 15 day trial period so you can try out the program to determine if it suits your needs. After 15 days, you should either register the program, or discard it. Registration removes the startup shareware notices, and personalizes your copy of PopupCD by displaying your name in the control panel as the registered owner, as well as removing the restrictions on saving sound clips.
To register, open the PopupCD control panel and click the 'Register...' button. Fill in the registration form that appears, print it out, and mail it to the address that appears on the form. Payment is accepted in US dollars only in the form of check (drawn on a US bank only, please do not send EuroCheques or Canadian checks, as they WILL be returned), cash, postal or personal money order, MasterCard, or Visa. If you elect to pay by credit card, you may also register by saving the form to a text file, and emailing it, or by faxing the printed registration form. Registration is $15 for a single user, or $10 per user for a 5 or more user site license. You will receive by return mail a registration serial number which will register PopupCD and disable the startup reminders. You can also order an official PopupCD disk with the most recent version of PopupCD and my other shareware.
You can also register on-line on CompuServe. To do so, log onto CompuServe, GO SWREG, and enter ID#6549. The cost is slightly higher due to CIS's 15% surcharge. CompuServe will deduct the fee from your CIS account, and you will receive an email confirmation with your serial number usually within 24 hours.
SUPPORT
I hope you enjoy PopupCD. If you have any suggestions for improvement, new feature requests, or most of all, bug reports, you can contact me at one of the following addresses.
WORLD WIDE WEB
http://www.tiac.net/users/jbrochu
EMAIL
jbrochu@tiac.net
US MAIL
John Brochu
PO Box 458
Middleton, MA 01949
FAX
(508) 774-7920
UPGRADES
The latest version of PopupCD will always be available on my web site, as well as on AOL (Mac Utilities Forum), CompuServe (Mac Applications Forum), and the Info-Mac archives. Your serial number will be valid for all future versions.
If you like PopupCD, you might want to try my other shareware product, "CalcWorks", an award-winning multi-function calculator, available at the above sites.
SPECIAL THANKS
Thanks to everyone who helped in testing PopupCD, including Jim Stout, Rex Maximilian, Tim Rice, and Chris Schweda. Also a big thanks to Ken Worley, whose 'sample cdev' code this product is initially built upon.
DISTRIBUTION
Unlimited non-commercial distribution of PopupCD is granted provided this document accompanies the PopupCD program, with the following provisions. PopupCD may not be sold or distributed for profit in any form, either with other products (commercial, shareware, or freeware), or in shareware/freeware collections sold for profit, without the prior written consent of the author. PopupCD may be distributed freely provided it is distributed in a non-profit manner, and is provided in its original unmodified form. However, please contact the author if you wish to distribute PopupCD in non-profit collections on disk, CD ROM, or other media, so that I can supply you with the most recent release.
DISCLAIMER
The author, John Brochu, makes no warranties regarding this program, its performance, or fitness to any purpose. The author is not responsible for any damage or data loss caused directly or indirectly through the use of this program.
